©Meandering Passage - Earl Moore Photography
Raking and baling hay beside the Blue Ridge Parkway near Floyd, VA, USA

Raised upon a farm one of my summer jobs, both paid and unpaid, was making hay. I most often mowed and then raked the hay into rows once it was cured. Raking becomes much more stressful when you have a baler working just behind you as shown in the photo above — the raker has to make two laps for every row while the baler only does one and it’s consider bad form if the baler has to wait on the raker. :-)

©Meandering Passage - Earl Moore Photography
Ejecting a finished round hay bale, Blue Ridge Parkway near Floyd, VA, USA

Most of my youthful hay making involved those small rectangular bales you had to get up and under cover by hand before it rained. Only in the last couple of years of my hay making experience did  these wonderful big “waterproof” bales come along and reduce the labor required.

Memories called me to pull over and make these photos.  It seems a fitting subject for the American “Labor Day” weekend.

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Steve Skinner
11 years ago

Earl, are you memories of making hay good one on bad ones?

ken bello
11 years ago

Looks like good memories but a lot of work.

Paul
11 years ago

Interesting that the raker had to keep in front of the bailer. It would seem that raking would be a job done on foot. I hope that you got a decent head start, like a couple of days! :D

Chris Klug
11 years ago

Yikes! Sounds like a bit of a job.